Wednesday, May 2, 2012

C2E2: Thoughts and Recollections

This
past weekend I attended the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo as a writer
for Imaginos Workshop. We had a table there in Artist Alley where we were
promoting our upcoming comic book sampler with posters, stickers and business
cards. We also were selling Issues 1 and 2 of Detroit Tradecraft’s The Door. It was a jam-packed and
exhausting weekend, and a valuable experience for our upstart company. We had
the benefit of sitting between some great artists. On one hand we talked to
Jeff Delgado of Dream Gear Studios, who does prints, t-shirts, tattoo design
and commissions. On the other side of our table was Carlos Gabriel Ruiz, with a
group of artists and illustrators from the St. Louis region.

The
most striking and immediate impression of a comic convention is the people
attending it. People-watching is at a premium at a con, which attracts a vast
number of people that come in many shapes and sizes. The easiest response
(especially for a “normal,” or someone not used to the culture of the con) is
mockery: the con environment is ripe for satire, or at least good-natured
ribbing. You will see people dressed in costumes, capes and tights. It’s no
secret that a con is a circus of nerds, geeks and freaks. Even such terms are
necessarily alienating, applied to a type of person that has been classified as
fringe. But the real reason one is at first drawn to mock conventioneers is not
the get-ups or the bad fashion: it is the bald-faced sincerity. There is a
certain high school mentality in ridiculing earnestness, and there is nothing
more earnest than a bald 42 year-old proudly sporting an R2D2 shirt. But once
the initial shock wears off from seeing an auditorium full of unabashedly nerdy
adults reveling in comic book culture, it’s hard not to enjoy yourself.

There
was a slew of celebrities and sub-celebrities there with ties to geek culture
and probably something to promote as well. I got an autograph and an awesome picture
with Tom Morello from Rage Against the
Machine. Later he did a Q&A session in which he talked about his comic
book epic Orchid and how
collaborating on a comic is different from playing in a band. He talked about
his career in the Los Angeles music scene as well as the future of the music
industry. In response to a question regarding downloading music, he said that
it was hard to support giant record labels that sue kids for downloading music
when the companies produce CD’s for ¢4 and sell them for $18.99. Morello: the
music industry as we know it may be on its way out, “and that may not be a bad
thing.” Later in the session he encouraged people to listen to a certain Nightwatchmen song but insisted: “This
isn’t a plug. Go download it illegally or something.” He also answered a
variety of geek-influenced questions such as what his least favorite comic
book-to-movie adaptation is (Watchmen. His favorite? Iron Man). Incidentally,
Morello is credited on IMDb as playing a guard in Iron Man. And when asked
about the state of Rage Against the
Machine Morello answered somewhat exasperatedly that there is no state of
the band: “Go tell your friends so they can stop asking me. If we do anything
we will tell you. We’re not hiding from you.”

Shia
Labeouf made an impromptu visit to the convention promoting his book of
self-styled art and observations. It exists somewhere between a memoir and a
comic book, and people seemed to be buying them at a quick pace for $10 apiece.
I didn’t buy his book but I did get a picture and ask him a question. It went
like this:

JR: You were a voice in Nausicaä
[of the Valley of the Wind].

Labeouf: Yes.

JR: Did you meet [Hayao] Miyazaki?

Labeouf: I met Miyazaki for a
total of 15 minutes. I basically did the movie for him. I view him like you do
[as a fan].

For
those who don’t know, Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese director with a slew of
critically claimed animated movies (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, etc.).
He is an unparalleled auteur and demigod in the cinematic world.

It was
a short exchange but Shia was visibly excited to talk about a cinematic idol
and I appreciated his enthusiasm. He struck me as surprisingly grounded for
someone that’s really gotten a heavy dose of celebrity in the past several
years. When my friend Alexa introduced herself to him she shook his hand and
said, “Hi, I’m alexa.” He responded, “Hi, I’m Shia.”

There’s
something refreshing about a mass of people sincerely reveling in a common
bond. It has the feel of a community of sorts, a hodgepodge of personalities
that probably wouldn’t look twice at each other on the street. Like a concert
or a sporting event, a convention is a state of mind, where you are united with
complete strangers with a common and undying bond. It is also the only place
where you can rub shoulders with Catwoman, Dr. Doom, Pikachu and Captain
America in a matter of minutes. C2E2 was an exhausting parade of artists,
onlookers and superheroes that more than once put me into a peculiar and
satisfied daze. It was only the second comic convention I’ve ever attended but
I hope there will be many more in the future.